Fragile Delinquent
by jcforever19
Summary: Sam reflects on events that occurred during iPear Store. Angsty seddie oneshot.


**This is my first time writing Seddie fan fiction, though I've always liked Seddie. **

**I'd love feedback/reviews on how I write the characters, although this one's mainly Sam. **

**I just had to write about iPear Store, it was too good not to write about. **

**-x-**

Sam feels hollow.

Not because she's lost the job, but because she feels like she's lost Freddie along with it. Lately, Freddie hasn't even pretended to care. In fact, something stupid about the morning has stuck out in her brain all day.

_He didn't even offer her a pear. _

He'd offered Carly one, even Gibby, maybe Spencer too. But not her. He'd just stood there, all excited about his new job in that nubbish way of his. And then later, when Carly forced Sam to stop by the Pear store with her to get her laptop fixed and see how Fredward was doing, Sam had stood Freddie up by showing his boss _she_ was more suited to the job than he was. Natalie had eaten her sales persona right up and offered her a spot alongside Freddie.

She could have gotten used to that. Seeing him everyday, calling him a nub and pretending she didn't care when he flirted with the pretty girls who walked into the pear store. But no; it hadn't worked out that way. Instead, _she'd_ been promoted and _he'd_ been fired. And it didn't help that he bored all the customers with his hour long lectures on hard disk memory and duel processors. It was kind of cute in a nerdy way; but not a lot of people cared about the really technological aspects of buying pear pads. It had still been kind of been her fault, although Natalie, his boss, had been rough too.

She'd been surprised when moments ago, those very words had come out of her lips.

"Don't you think you were a little rough on him?"

Natalie shook her head off handedly. "Nah, who cares?"

Sam cares. There is no way in hell she will ever admit it, but she cares a damn heck of a lot more than she's willing to let on. So she slips off her shiny Pear tag and walks out of the store, leaving a partially amused, partially angry Natalie behind, sitting on the counter of the Excellence Bar.

That's one thing Sam does not care about. The job was never supposed to be anything special to her. Freddie _was. _Sam has wished and hoped that Freddie will give her the slightest hint that he still loves her or that he _ever_ loved her, whether at work or during iCarly.

So far she is drawing a blank when it comes to Freddie. Things seem to be deteriorating, actually. He has just screamed at her in the store in front of everyone. He calls her a delinquent, a criminal, a girl with a prison record, a lazy good for nothing, and the list of bad things seems to be infinite in Sam's eyes.

_Does he really have nothing good to say for her? Does he have nothing to say about how beautiful she is in the mornings, when she's eating bacon? Does he have nothing to say about how secretly tech savvy she is? How spontaneous and independent she is? How strong she is?_

_No._ Instead, Freddie Benson chooses to confirm her worst fear. She's the pathetic one who's still in love with a memory. A memory of what once was, what could have been; but wasn't. More importantly, what would never be. Freddie Benson is trying to move on with his life, healing the scar that seemed never to exist. Sam is trying to numb the pain of the old scar, by creating new ones.

She creates lies. She's just told Natalie a lie.

_He's still in love with me. It's kinda sad." _

_The truth is, _he was never in love with her. **Why would he be?** After all, she is a delinquent. A criminal. A girl with a prison record. A girl whose mother lives for tattoos and strange men. A girl whose uncles reside in jail and can snap necks at the snap of a finger. A girl who is fragile, but will _break_ the moment someone sees her for what she truly is.

She is lying to Natalie and to herself. Even Carly knows she is the one who still pines for Benson day and night. It would be nice if what she had said was truth, but it wasn't.

**Freddie Benson does not love her.** He will not love her. Not tomorrow, not the next day, not a year from now.

_And besides, _who can forget about Freddie's apparently revived crush on Carls? Carly is Sam's best friend. She understands about the whole Freddie thing, although it's not up for grabs as sleepover conversation material or even casual locker small talk. But Freddie likes _her_ again, doesn't he?

That leaves Sam to her rightful place- second. Second to Carly in the running for Freddie (though Carly doesn't really take part in that race; it is still woefully one-sided…) Second to Freddie in the qualifications for that Pear Store job because of her criminal record and talentlessness. Second to Melanie, the sweet and over-achieving sister.

Second to just about _everyone_, because she wasn't _someone_.

She was just plain old Sam Puckett.

She thought Freddie would change the way she felt about that, but she is lamentably wrong. He has only reinforced her sense of…place.


End file.
